It's the first question almost every founder asks, and the honest answer is the one nobody likes: it depends. But "it depends" isn't good enough when you're trying to plan a budget, so here is the real breakdown — the numbers, what moves them, and how to avoid spending money on the wrong things.
For 2026, a focused software MVP in the UK typically costs somewhere between £15,000 and £80,000. That's a wide range on purpose. Where you land inside it is decided almost entirely by scope, seniority, and how clearly you understand the problem before anyone writes code.
The quick answer, by MVP size
Rough guide ranges, assuming senior delivery and a clearly defined problem:
- £15,000–£30,000 — a lean MVP. One core workflow, a single user type, basic accounts, hosted on managed infrastructure. Enough to put in front of real users and learn.
- £30,000–£55,000 — a standard MVP. Payments, a couple of user roles, an admin view, a third-party integration or two, and a design that doesn't look like a weekend project.
- £55,000–£80,000+ — a complex MVP. Multiple integrations, an AI feature that actually works, real data modelling, or a regulated domain where getting it wrong is expensive.
What actually drives the cost
The technology stack barely matters to the price. These five things do.
Scope. Every feature you add doesn't cost its build time once — it costs design, build, testing, and ongoing maintenance, and it interacts with everything around it. The single biggest lever on cost is ruthlessly cutting the feature list down to the one thing your MVP has to prove.
Clarity. A vague brief is the most expensive thing in software. If the problem isn't well understood before the build starts, you pay to discover it in code — the slowest, most costly place to learn. An afternoon of decisions up front routinely saves weeks of rework. This is exactly the gap a fractional CTO closes.
Integrations. Payments, identity, mapping, email, CRMs, third-party APIs — each one is a small project with its own edge cases. Two integrations is comfortable; six is a different budget entirely.
Seniority. A cheap day rate that ships the wrong architecture is the most expensive option available, because you pay twice: once to build it, once to rebuild it. Most startups fail at the technical decisions, not the code, and that's where money quietly disappears.
Design. A genuinely usable interface costs more than a functional-but-ugly one, but for anything customer-facing it's rarely optional — first impressions decide whether anyone gives your MVP a second try.
An MVP isn't the cheapest version of your product. It's the smallest version that proves whether the idea is worth more money.
Where AI changes the maths (and where it doesn't)
AI-assisted development is real, and it genuinely speeds up the routine parts of a build — boilerplate, tests, repetitive UI, first drafts of code. Used well by a senior engineer, it can take real time out of a delivery.
What it doesn't do is remove the hard, expensive part: deciding what to build, how the data should be shaped, and which trade-offs you'll regret in a year. AI accelerates typing; it doesn't replace judgement. The teams getting cheaper, faster MVPs aren't the ones who "use AI" — they're the ones where a senior person uses AI as a force multiplier. If you want AI inside the product too, that's a separate decision with its own cost, covered on the Software & AI development page.
The cheapest MVP is the one you don't rebuild
The most common way founders waste money isn't paying too much per day. It's building the wrong thing twice. I've inherited the failed version of projects more often than I've built from scratch, and the pattern is almost always the same: too much scope, too little clarity, and nobody senior owning the decisions.
If you want to spend less, the lever isn't a cheaper developer. It's a tighter scope and a clearer plan before anyone starts. That's where the money is saved.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to build an MVP?
In 2026, a focused software MVP typically costs between £15,000 and £80,000 in the UK. A simple single-purpose web app sits at the lower end; an MVP with payments, multiple user roles, integrations, or AI features sits higher. The biggest cost driver is scope, not technology.
How long does it take to build an MVP?
A well-scoped MVP usually takes 6 to 12 weeks to reach a usable, launchable state. Anything quoted at "a few days" is a prototype, not an MVP; anything stretching past six months has usually lost focus on the one problem it should solve.
Does using AI make an MVP cheaper to build?
It can reduce build time on routine code, but it rarely changes the cost of the hard parts — architecture, data modelling, and deciding what to build. The savings come from a senior person using AI well, not from AI replacing the senior person.
What is the difference between an MVP and a prototype?
A prototype demonstrates an idea and is often thrown away. An MVP is real, working software that early customers can use and pay for, built so it can grow if the idea proves out. The price difference reflects that durability.
The honest version
If a number sounds too cheap, it's usually a prototype dressed up as an MVP, or a quote that quietly leaves out testing, design, and the decisions that stop you rebuilding. If it sounds enormous, the scope has probably ballooned past what you actually need to prove.
If you're trying to put a realistic number on your build, tell me about it. I'll give you an honest read — no pitch.